Car vs train across the United States

A modern, decidedly Top Gear homage to the great Blue Train races: a head-to-head between Amtrak and a Bentley Continental...

There is also the burgeoning issue that, before we get to those spectacular eye-widening views, the Iowan plains immediately outside Chicago have to be negotiated, through the first night. What follows, therefore, is a testament to the power of caffeine.

I faintly remember criss-crossing train tracks scythed through a couple of Midwestern suburban streets in a town I can't remember the name of as the sun dipped behind buildings like a meteor on terminal approach. I remember going for a wee at the side of the road in the dark, and being really quite afraid of snakes. I remember fuelling the cars at an unmanned fuel station in the middle of the night and being afraid of being made to do unholy things by an armed and lonely trucker.